


do not play at God (especially when you're doing rounds with him tomorrow)

by winteryknights (BlackcatNamedlucky)



Series: the author is aggressively michigan on main [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Humor, Medical School, Oh also, POV Outsider, Temporary Character Death, and Grey's Anatomy, as per usual, based entirely off of wsu's school of medicine website, ggcu, instead of asking the people i know who have actually gone to medical school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackcatNamedlucky/pseuds/winteryknights
Summary: All you really need to know is that (Dr.) That Weird Guy (™) pinged something on Nadia’s “not this shit again” radar for a few reasons: 1. No-one knew what hospital he’d actually come from, or why, only that he was acting as an interim attending for one of the ER doctors who’d just up and disappeared the month before and hadn’t been heard from again, 2. He supposedly had some experience with battlefield medicine, but no one knew from which battlefield, and, 3. Don’t ask them how they know, but they’re 100% certain they heard him talking to someone on the phone in Classical Latin. Like, fluently. He was having a full conversation with the person until he’d noticed someone else was around and (totally inconspicuously) switched to maybe-French, although it didn’t sound like any dialect Nadia had ever heard.Or,Nadia El-Amin is just trying to make it through their fourth year of med school without any incidents to rival the night of October 30th, 2017. They don't have time for doctors with unnerving gazes and mysterious pasts, and theydefinitelydon't have time for their outdated ideas of medical practice. They just want this month to be over with already.
Relationships: Original Non-Binary Character(s) & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Original Non-binary Character(s) & Original Female Character(s)
Series: the author is aggressively michigan on main [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087166
Comments: 17
Kudos: 94





	do not play at God (especially when you're doing rounds with him tomorrow)

Nadia’s “days without an unexplainable fever dream of an experience” counter was set to zero when That Weird Guy (™) became their attending in their last year of med school. And they’d been _so_ hoping to make it all the way to graduation (and _not_ only because that would have been 1,069 days, no matter what Muhammad tells you).

All you really need to know is that (Dr.) That Weird Guy (™) pinged something on Nadia’s “not this shit again” radar for a few reasons: 1. No-one knew what hospital he’d actually come from, or why, only that he was acting as an interim attending for one of the ER doctors who’d just up and disappeared the month before and hadn’t been heard from again (which did _not_ help the jitters Nadia still got at the library after dark), 2. He supposedly had some experience with battlefield medicine, but no one knew from _which_ battlefield (and, frankly, Nadia didn’t quite trust him based on that fact alone), and, 3. Don’t ask them how they know, but they’re 100% certain they heard him talking to someone on the phone in _Classical Latin_. Like, fluently. He was having a full conversation with the person until he’d noticed someone else was around and (totally inconspicuously) switched to maybe-French, although it didn’t sound like any dialect Nadia had ever heard.

(The weirdness of this was dampened somewhat by the fact that the part of the conversation that Nadia could catch was about whether the person on the other end of the line should be eating three-day-old Chinese food for breakfast, which was almost exactly an argument Nadia had previously had with Renée after an all-nighter, but still. They’re pretty sure their point stands.)

So, all in all, (Dr.) That Weird Guy (™) (whose real name was Nico Genovese, and, Nadia didn’t like to jump to conclusions, but that paper they wrote about the Genovese crime family back in high school sat at the back of their mind for the entirety of their rotation with him. Did they even _have_ connections in Detroit?), was just so fully _off_ that, eventually, Nadia actively tried to stay out of his way, which was an almost Herculean task considering that he was their boss.

And then, well, tales like this are not best told in sum, so let’s start at the beginning:

It’s a dreary January day, last night’s fresh snow already turned to grey and brown slush under the tires of Woodward’s earliest commuters, and Nadia has just pulled into the hospital parking lot. They get out and promptly shut the door of their shitty old sedan on the untucked tail of their scarf without noticing and almost strangle themself in their hurry to get inside before their shift starts. Which, of course, leads to slipping on a patch of black ice, slamming back-first onto the cracked concrete of the parking lot, and subsequently losing any and all will they had to look like a model student for their attending.

They’re staring into the sun and contemplating just how embarrassing it would be to call an ambulance when they’re in a hospital parking lot when a shadow falls over their face and a man crouches down in front of them, light eyes full of concern.

“Miss? Are you alright?” he asks, in a heavy Italian accent.

Nadia only has the presence of mind to respond, “Th’last person called me that got eviscerated,” which is _decidedly_ not something they should be telling a stranger, no matter how kind he may seem. With any luck, he’ll just think they have a rather dark sense of humor.

But his face twists, like he’s genuinely confused as to whether or not they’re telling a joke, which should have been their first clue.

“Sorry for assuming,” he says, slowly, then, “I believe the question remains, regardless.”

It takes them a moment to remember what he means, indicating that they _probably_ shouldn’t go with the classic, “M’fine,” answer, but they do anyways, and he arches one unfairly well-sculpted eyebrow.

“Right.”

“Swear! Can move all ten fingers and toes,” they say, wiggling a gloved hand to prove their point, but stopping midway to ask, “Twenty?”

He seems unimpressed, but he checks his watch and swears with a huff. “Alright. Do you need help up?” he asks, and Nadia pauses, figures it would probably be nice, then nods.

He’d seemed normal enough then.

(Nadia supposes their idea of normal might be a little skewed, but they’re not entirely sure that factors into this story.)

They don’t see him again for a few days, spent trying to make up for their tardiness the day they’d first met him, and then the program chief gathers the students to introduce their interim attending and a familiar pair of piercing eyes catches Nadia’s.

He winks at them as the chief gives her speech about respect and authority before letting Dr. Genovese take the floor and introduce himself properly.

They can’t tell if it’s the harsh hospital lighting that makes him look old beyond his years, the way it carves centuries of shadows into the dark circles around his deep-set eyes, or if it’s the familiar weariness of the set of his shoulders— a tired kind of anger, softened by a mercy learned at the hands of the merciless. Either way, there’s an air about him that speaks of secrets, a trail of whispers following his every movement.

Maybe that should have been their second clue, but in the moment they’re too distracted by trying to hide their embarrassment to notice.

And anyways, who _wouldn’t_ be that exhausted when they’re trying to corral a group of egotistic medical students into following their lead after having just met them. And in their second language, no less.

He finishes his introduction with a kind, if small, smile, just as a nurse announces that they’ve got incoming from a pile-up on I-75, and then Nadia is swept up in the chaos and doesn’t see Dr. Genovese again until the end of their shift.

He grows on them, over the next few days. He seems nice, he really does! Normal, even. And it doesn’t hurt when they find him in the break room, leaning against the arm of the couch and talking to someone on the phone in Derija, and the warmth of home floods through them. But there’s a look on his face so damn fond that they immediately turn on their heel and go seek out coffee elsewhere so as to avoid eavesdropping on whatever obviously personal conversation he’s having.

They’re halfway down the hall when it strikes them to wonder just how many languages Dr. Genovese speaks.

They bring it up to Renée a few days later, the both of them taking advantage of a quiet moment and watching Dr. Genovese chat idly with a nurse as he fills out paperwork, still in the early stages of trying to figure out what his deal is.

“I dunno,” she says, “maybe he had to pick it up when he was a medic.”

“Yeah, I don’t think the Italian army has spent nearly enough time in North Africa for that level of language acquisition, Ren,” Nadia counters, quickly averting their eyes and taking a sip of their coffee when Dr. Genovese finishes what he’s doing and heads in their direction. They wait for him to pass into an exam room before turning back to Renée and hissing, “he didn’t even have an accent.”

“We don’t know that he was a battlefield medic _in the army_. Maybe he was doing humanitarian aid stuff, he seems the type,” Renée says, too loudly for Nadia’s taste. Before they can pull her further away from the room Dr. Genovese had gone into, she follows up with, “All I really care to know is it _totally_ makes him hotter.”

Nadia decides not to reveal that it definitely sounded like he was talking to a lover. Not really their information to share, anyways.

Instead, they go with, “Sure, Ren, whatever you say,” and walk towards the nurse’s station to check if their patient’s labs are back yet, throwing away their coffee cup as they go.

Honestly, the more they think about it, the language thing isn’t all that weird. Yeah, maybe it makes his already vague backstory that much more mysterious, but given how many people they know that speak two or more languages, knowing three themself, it’s not exactly fair to call it _weird_ just because they don’t know anything about his life. He’s probably just a private person.

(This is before, of course, what they are now referring to as the “I don’t think ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’ was meant to be that literal” incident.)

What _really_ stands out to them is his frequently...let’s say _old-fashioned_ ideas about medicine. Sometimes it feels like he went to medical school before the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Like, for example, today. They’re going over a patient’s lab results with dismay, trying and failing to remember what antibiotic they’re supposed to prescribe to a patient with a penicillin allergy when Dr. Genovese hands a chart off to a nurse and starts down the hall. They hurry after him, stopping him in the hall and stepping uncomfortably close (closer, likely, than they needed to) to let a patient on a gurney be pushed past them.

“Hey, uh, I’ve got a patient with syphilis and a severe penicillin allergy,” they start, stepping back once the gurney passes, “I was just trying to remember the name of the broad-spectrum antibiotic I’m supposed to give them instead.”

“Doxycycline,” he says. Right, they knew it started with a d. “Or, if it’s not terribly severe, you could always prescribe topical mercury.”

“Right, okay, thanks.”

Wait.

Okay so it’s probably ill-advised and unprofessional to ask your boss if they’re _trying_ to give people kidney failure, but,

“Hold on, are you _trying_ to give people kidney failure?” they blurt, immediately slamming their hand over their mouth, mortified.

Dr. Genovese, to his credit, only looks confused. “Is that not the practice here?”

They drop their hand, sure the expression on their face now must be comical. “ _No_.”

And it hadn’t been for, like, _a hundred years_. Did they mention the kidney failure?

“Ah, well, the doxycycline, then,” he says, and walks away, leaving Nadia to stare after him dumbfounded.

Well, at least they know what to give their patient.

And to exhaust all other options before consulting Dr. Genovese on treatment plans. _Definitely_ Dr. Weird Guy.

Nadia is grateful beyond words that their rotation is up in only a few weeks, and, all told, they do pass without incident. Well, without incident related to Dr. Weird Guy and his man-out-of-time antics. It’s an ER for goodness’ sake, if the weeks passed without incident, Nadia would be out of a job.

Ah, but I digress, let’s return to the incident that _fully_ cemented Dr. Genovese as (Dr.) That Weird Guy (™).

A week after Nadia’s rotation under Dr. Genovese ends, Renée invites them out for drinks with a few of the other students they had been working with. They go to a bar down the street from campus, a favorite for its fantastic food and actually decent non-alcoholic drinks menu. It’s a nice little place, one that Nadia and Renée have been going to for long enough that half the waitstaff know them by name, so when the others in the group decide to extend the night and go even further into debt than medical school has already sent them by heading to Greektown, the two of them stay behind.

They’re sitting at the bar, talking with the bartender (Jordan, tonight) about her son’s most recent debate tournament when Renée quietly dismisses herself to the bathroom. A moment later, a man walks into the bar, looking every bit like he belongs in a Christian Dior commercial with his tight, ever so slightly distressed leather jacket and head of unruly curls, and takes the seat next to Nadia. He leans on his forearms on the bartop, looking up at the menu, and Jordan breaks the conversation to ask him if he knows what he wants so Nadia looks down at their phone over the top of Renée’s glass. A text from her comes in a few moments later, asking Nadia to look in her purse for a tampon, _and if you could take it to the bathroom pleeeeeease I’ll love you forever_ , so they grab one, ask Jordan to watch Renée’s drink, and hop off their stool to head to the bathroom.

When the two of them return, the guy who’d just come in is playing darts in the opposite corner with another man, keeping up a steady stream of banter in a language Nadia can’t quite identify. They tune it out, anyways, picking up their conversation with Jordan and letting the time pass languidly.

If they hadn’t, maybe they would have realized the familiarity of one of the men’s’ voices before he comes up to the bar, interrupting with a polite “Excuse me, sorry, could we-” before cutting himself off when he recognizes the other two people at the bar.

“Oh! Nadia? Renée? Fancy seeing you here,” Dr. Genovese says, voice uncharacteristically light and smile warm.

Renée squeaks.

Nadia coughs to cover it, then gets out, “Oh, hey Dr. Ge-” before he cuts her off.

“Nico, please, no white coats to be seen, huh?” he says, then finally glances at the menu and directs his attention to Jordan. “Sorry, right, a short trip to hell, please.” He deadpans the order but there’s a sparkle of mirth in his eyes.

It brightens when his friend comes up to him, murmuring something that sounds like “papal indulgence” and earning an elbow to the ribs for the effort.

“Sorry,” the friend says, though the laughter in his words betrays his insincerity, then turns to Nadia and Renée. “Who are your friends?” he asks, smiling at them.

“Old coworkers, ah, Nadia, Renée, this is my husband.”

Nadia can practically feel Renée deflate next to them.

“Lovely to meet you,” the husband says, voice scraping over a barely-detectable accent, “I’m Yosef,” he introduces himself, and extends a hand.

Nadia takes it, “Nice to meet you,” they say, dropping his hand and nudging Renée to take it next.

She does, if reluctantly, muttering a greeting, then, “So, Nico, how are things at the ER?”

“Oh, uh, I have no idea, I left not long after you. They found a permanent replacement and we are back to wandering the world over,” Dr. G-, no, _Nico_ says, smiling at Yosef. Jordan slides him his drink, then, and the two men excuse themselves back to their table by the dartboard.

“Why are all the hot ones married,” Renée whines after they’ve gone, and pouts into her drink as though it can answer.

“He’s also gay,” Jordan points out, and Renée glares at her.

“Thank you, very unnecessary,” she grumbles, then they’re all shaken from the moment by a loud crash coming from behind them.

Nadia whirls around to see an overturned table, bits of broken glass and scattered napkins littering the floor, and Nico, collapsed, with Yosef kneeling by his side.

They try to rush over but Yosef stops them, and instructs Jordan to not call an ambulance. “He’s fine,” he says, though it looks like Nico isn’t breathing.

No, definitely not breathing.

“This happens sometimes,” Yosef continues, his casual tone tightened by a thread of panic that he’s trying to reel back in. He shifts, as if he’s trying to conceal his husband’s _definitely dead body_. “Nicolò, _hayati_ , come on, come back,” he says, turning his attention away from them, and Nadia is stuck between frustration that he won’t let them _help_ and heartache for what he must be going through right now.

But, to their utter shock, they hear a sharp gasp, then Nico moves, sitting up slowly and leaning against Yosef’s chest.

“Okay,” Renée says from behind Nadia, “what the _fuck_ just happened?”

Nico and Yosef share a look, then, “Narcolepsy,” they both try to deadpan, although Nico’s sounds more like a question and Yosef’s sounds more like a joke.

Nadia stands there, whatever words they want to say stuck in their throat as Yosef helps Nico to his feet. The two of them walk to the bar, Yosef’s arm wrapped tight around Nico’s waist, though it’s seemingly more for his own comfort than any sort of physical support for Nico. The man doesn’t even seem _phased_.

“Oh, right, here.” Yosef stops them at the bar and pulls a slim leather wallet out of his pocket, taking out a couple of bills and handing them to Jordan. “This should cover...everything,” he says with a brief nod, then the two of them are out the door.

“Well, sure seemed like a short trip to hell to me,” Jordan says, watching them through the windows as they walk up the street and waiting for them to be out of eyesight before holding up the bills— _$120_ , for two drinks and a broken glass—and shaking her head in disbelief. “I’m saying the rest of this is for emotional damages,” she says, slipping the $20 into the till and pocketing the rest.

Nadia sits back down on their stool, leans heavily on the bartop, and stares at the space behind Jordan’s head for a moment before asking, “Hey, uh, when’s the next full moon?”

Renée snorts, and Jordan follows shortly after, and then the three of them are laughing hysterically, interspersed with weak howls.

Dr. That Weird Guy (™) in _deed_.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be honest, I do not know what this is. why are they in the US? why does Nicky need to pose as a doctor? were they responsible for the disappearance of that other ER doc? who knows? not me! I was just having fun with a fic that one, _maybe_ two people in the whole world will understand 100% of the references in, and if this reaches my high school English teacher then...well, hi Kelly!  
> the syphilis treatment suggestion was based on 20 seconds of googling "weird outdated medical practices" at like 11pm (and, like Nadia pointed out, is _definitely_ no longer used. penicillin or, as was mentioned, synthetic tetracycline-class broad-spectrum antibiotics are) so take it with a grain of salt. also, why are cocktail names Like That?  
> anyways, I hope you enjoyed this :)  
> if you'd like to chat, you can find me on tumblr at [the-sneering-menagerie](https://the-sneering-menagerie.tumblr.com), and, as always, comments and kudos make my day :)


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